OW MANY DIRECTORS does it take to make a successful comic book "translation"? Well, in the case of Sin City it took two, plus a "special guest director," and it couldn't have proved to be more beneficial.

With 'Sin City' series creator, Frank Miller, the man with the plan and directing experience in Robert Rodriguez and even the pulp experience in Quentin Tarantino for a short stint this film took advantage of the knowledge that each man brought to the table and just ran wild.

Miller provided the background and subtle character direction, Rodriguez took the helm for close to every minute detail and Tarantino stepped on stage where he was needed and has given the reigns for one specific scene. So how was Rodriguez's first collaborative effort, especially working with Frank Miller?

Robert said, "It was very complimentary, I really wanted to have him there as a director rather than just as a writer and as a producer because I felt if it just came to that, they might just stick him in the corner and feed him a sandwich every once in a while. Having him there as a director people had to listen to him, and I wanted it not to be Robert Rodriquez's Sin City, I loved the books so much I wanted it to be as close to something he would do as a movie as possible. It was really like a tag team."

Tag team eh? How did the actors take to this "tag team"? Along with the green screen work it could have become overwhelming.

Clive Owen talked about the duo and said, "I think that having Frank there was almost essential, he's the guy that conjured up this sort of crazy world. I saw the film yesterday for the first time and I have to say I think [Robert Rodriguez] is a genius; I was blown away by it. I sat through that movie and I felt as if I was taken to an extraordinary place I had never been before, and I think Frank's vision of the world is that."

That vision certainly holds up in the feature adaptation and a better decision could not have been made than bringing Quentin Tarantino in to direct a scene or two, and in this case he tackles a highly memorable scene from the graphic novels featuring Clive Owen and Benicio del Toro in a rather odd exchange of words and wit. Rodriguez talked about it with us:

"Originally, I had thought there would be more shorter stories in the movie, as well when I first told [Quentin] about it and then it ended up being the longer ones. So, I told him 'Well, you can direct one of the sequences' because Frank originally issued them in small issues.' That's why you always see these characters die every ten minutes because he always wanted you to come back to the next comic book. So, each book was made up of several smaller issues. I had to basically do an issue which was where Benicio and Clive were in the car together and Benicio's got the gun barrel and he's talking. It was Quentin's idea to have him speak in an outer voice, where it was voice over, to actually speak it out. He did something kind of like that in Reservoir Dogs and Clive didn't know until the day. Quentin was like 'Wait a minute. All this monologue that you were going to do with voice over later, you should do it on the set. Can you learn it real quick?' Clive really impressed the hell out of Quentin. That's all he ever talks about is the fact that Clive went away for five minutes and did the whole monologue right there off the cuff. Especially since he's trying to do an American accent so he had to figure that out as well right there on the day. Quentin came in so prepared. Frank and I had been shooting already. This was our last episode. He was afraid he'd be unprepared so he over prepared and made Frank and I look like bums. He came in with every shot written up, all this visionary stuff... We just blasted through it. He had a blast doing it."

So what did Clive think about this quick decision to all of a sudden learn about 8-10 minutes worth of dialogue?

"I was there and he told me on the day and he said, 'Wouldn't it be great if you spoke it into the camera?' And my first reaction is, 'Shit! Now he tells me.' It was a lot of dialogue there, that whole section in the book is just voice over. But I learn lines quickly anyway, so I went around the corner and got it down and just went for it."

Went for it indeed, as did the entire cast and crew Rodriguez described the process and couldn't have put it any better, "It was all very natural, it just worked, when I would get a shot and I thought we had it and the actor knew, I turned and sure enough Frank would have a huge smile on his face and we knew we got it and we would move on to the next shot."

...and CUT! SCENE!